Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Will Have A New Paragon System – Here’s How It Works

Forget everything you know about leveling your champions in the genre defining smash-and-grab series of Diablo, because with the coming Reaper of Souls expansion, everything is about to change.

When Blizzard implemented the Paragon system into the Diablo series in August of 2012, their goal was to satisfy top-tier players. Paragon became a display of the time players invested, as well as a significant boost to the rate at which players looted the best gears possible on their adventures. Allowing for upward of another 100 levels to add to their champions’ existing 60 levels, Blizzard set forward with their goals – and we’re mostly successful to this point with helping players earn more gold then ever. But is that enough?

With the launch of the coming expansion, Blizzard feels that the paragon system is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there is a top-end to the Paragon system, which does not truly cater to the most dedicated players of the series. On March 25th, 2014, the Paragon system will lift all restrictions to the leveling system. No longer are you shooting for level 60, 100, 160, or 1000, as your dedication to the game will always be proven to the masses – so long as your level of paragon can fit on the screen. Additionally, the former Paragon system attaches your levels to each individual character, holding some players down to their Barbarian if they wanted to show their prestige. With patch 2.0.1 on launch day, Blizzard will forego this aging idea and share your Paragon levels among all of your existing champions. “Hardcore” and Normal champions will not have the same Paragon levels, however – because Paragon will feature bonuses beyond the former gold and loot gains.

Blizzard’s most drastic change to the system this Spring will come in the addition of Paragon Points. Players will now no longer take advantage of a static Gold Find, Magic Find, and stat bonus, but rather will now earn Paragon Points in one of four progression categories: Core, Offense, Defense, or Utility. Each point earned will be automatically allocated, as Paragon Level 1 will give you a point in “Core” stats, as level 2 will give you a point in Offense. Points are allocated in a “Round-Robin” format, meaning that one point will be placed in all four categories, and in the same repeating pattern of Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility as you progress.

Each category will feature four attributes from which you may improve your character, displayed below:

Core points can be spent on your class’s primary stat, Vitality, Movement Speed, or bonus Class Resource.Offensive points focus on increasing your damage output and efficiency, and include Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Hit Chance, and Critical Hit Damage.Defensive points include stats that help improve your survivability. Options include bonus Life percentage, bonus Armor, Resist All, and Life Regeneration.Utility points include more specialized stats that allow players to refine their builds. These points can be spent on boons like Area Damage, Resource Cost Reduction, Life on Hit, and Gold Find.

As a note for the most dedicated of players: Blizzard has planned to cap out the number of Paragon Points that may be added into the Offense, Defense, and Utility tabs when a player reaches level 800 Paragon. Beyond this level of Paragon, players may only receive points in the “Core” tab, and will still be given the choice to add stats into one of their four given options.

Additional Details:
•The new Paragon system is account-wide; all heroes will benefit from the gained bonuses, including your newly created characters!
•Your account’s Paragon Point pool is not shared between your heroes. Instead, heroes on your account will each get their own set of Paragon Points to spend independently (e.g. you can spend your Paragon Points differently for each hero). To provide an example, if your account’s Normal Shared Paragon level is 100, all Normal heroes on your account will each get 100 Paragon Points to distribute as you see fit.
•All heroes will be able to contribute to Shared Paragon levels equally. There are no bonuses or burdens for Paragon leveling multiple heroes of the same class.
•Be sure to experiment! You can reset your Paragon Points at any time without having to pay a single gold coin. Respecs occur on the hero level, not the account level, so respeccing on one hero will not reset your Paragon Points on other heroes.
To provide an example, here’s a new level 1 hero. This hero will begin with a Shared Paragon level of 127 as well as 127 Paragon Points, which can be allocated at will to the four different categories.

As Nerd Interests' Co-Owner and Editor-in-Chief, I oversee daily operations. You can follow me on Twitter @TheVisionEx, or join me on Facebook/TheVisionEx. I'm on the PlayStation Network when I'm not on the PC by the handle of VisionEx. I'm always down to play with anyone who invites me, so long as I have the game you want.

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